Andy Cannizaro is out as baseball coach at Mississippi State University, sending shock waves around the state, as well as college baseball.
“I had a wonderful opportunity at Mississippi State, but unfortunately I made some poor decisions,” Cannizaro was quoted as saying in an MSU press release. “I hope Mississippi State University and all of the fans and people affected will one day forgive me.”
Cannizaro was John Cohen’s hand-picked guy – his first hire, a guy he essentially hired as his successor even before he moved up from baseball coach to Mississippi State’s athletic director in November of 2016. The MSU baseball job is widely considered among the most attractive in the college sport. State is currently in the middle of a $50 million-plus upgrade to Dudy Noble Field.
“When you look at all the characteristics we need in a baseball coach at Mississippi State, Andy is the perfect fit,” Cohen said at the time.
“We’re getting a better coach than John Cohen,” Cohen also said.
Fifteen months later – after Cannizaro was immensely successful in his first season, taking the Bulldogs to an NCAA Super Regional – Cannizaro resigned effective immediately, according to the release.
The news seemingly came out of nowhere. The decision clearly was made for off-the field reasons. Rumors are rampant.
Cannizaro was in the second year of a four-year contract that paid him an average of $533,000 a year.
MSU pitching coach Gary Henderson, formerly head coach at Kentucky, will become the interim head baseball coach.
“Although I have taken this position under some unfortunate circumstances, I have been with this team for two years,” Henderson said in the MSU press release. “We have great student-athletes and a tremendous staff who proudly represent our tradition-rich program. We will move forward, focusing on the things we can control and give Mississippi State fans a team they can be proud of.”
The Bulldogs, who began the season nationally ranked, dropped all three games of an opening series to likewise nationally ranked Southern Miss in Hattiesburg this past weekend. The Bulldogs are scheduled to play Jackson State at JSU on Wednesday night.
Cannizaro, 39, came to Mississippi State from SEC rival LSU, where he was an assistant coach. A former Tulane standout and grad, he played in the Major Leagues. He then became a professional baseball scout for five years before joining Paul Manieri’s staff at LSU where he earned the reputation of being an outstanding recruiter.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.